It is conventional practice in the winding, tensioning and guiding art to ship elongate materials, such as cable, wire, flaccid conduits, or the like wound on reels. A purchaser or user then unwinds the material from the reel.
The basic structure of a reel in this art includes a hub and two end flanges with the material being wound around the hub and stored in a compartment defined between the flanges. The material is dispensed from the reel by being unwound from the hub.
In some cases, the reel can be returned to the manufacturer for re-use. However, in some situations, the reel is so large that it is not economical to ship the empty reel back. In such situations, the empty reel presents a problem. It cannot be simply left at the site; however, shipping the empty reel anywhere presents an expense and a problem.
An example of this problem is associated with the placement of fiber optic cables. In this situation, large hollow conduits are first placed, and then fiber optic cables are then inserted into the hollow conduits. As is known in the art, such cable placement can extend for great distances, perhaps many miles. Several miles of conduit will require many large reels. From the above discussion, it will be appreciated that the disposal of reels associated with this procedure can present a significant problem.
Therefore, there is a need for a reel that can accommodate large amounts of material and can be efficiently removed from a site upon completion of a material dispensing procedure.
Still further, many overall projects require several different sizes of material. The different sizes can include not only different outer perimeters for the materials, but different lengths as well. The different lengths of material can be used for runs that are of different lengths from a main, overall, long run of the material.
Therefore, there is a need for a reel that can accommodate large amounts of different size material and can be efficiently removed from a site upon completion of a material dispensing procedure.
Still further, many large reels can be expensive to manufacture. Therefore, it will be most cost effective to use a reel in as many different situations as possible.
Therefore, there is a need for a reel that can accommodate large amounts of material and can be efficiently removed from a site upon completion of a material dispensing procedure and which is adaptable to a wide variety of requirements and uses.
Still further, reels must be stored between uses. Large reels will require large amounts of storage area. This can be expensive and is not efficient.
Therefore, there is a need for a reel that can accommodate large amounts of material and can be efficiently removed from a site upon completion of a material dispensing procedure and which can be efficiently stored when not in use.
While the art contains many example of reels suitable for storing flaccid material, such as fiber optic cable conduits, these known reels are not easy to dispose of after use. Furthermore, these known reels are not amendable to efficient modification to meet changed requirements. The reel, once manufactured, can be used only for storing and/or dispensing material that is within a narrow range of sizes. Known reels are also quite difficult to store efficiently as they are often quite large and/or heavy and bulky.
Therefore, known reels are not only inefficient to store and dispose of, they are not cost effective.
Still further, many known reels are job specific in that a reel is manufactured for a particular use and/or material, and is not easily changed to satisfy other requirements. As such, these reels are not cost efficient.
Therefore, there is a need for a reel that can accommodate large amounts of material and can be efficiently removed from a site upon completion of a material dispensing procedure, and which can be easily set up and modified for a wide variety of different needs.
Still further, the component parts of many known reels are welded together to form the reel. This makes assembly and disassembly very difficult.
These, and other, objects are achieved by knockdown reel that includes at least two flanges releasably coupled together by a changeable hub. The hub is adjustable to define different outer perimetric hub dimensions as well as to accommodate more than two flanges for defining a number of compartments.
The reel of the present invention can be disassembled between uses so it can be efficiently shipped to or from a desired location as well as efficiently stored.
Still further, the adjustable nature of the reel permits it to efficiently accommodate a wide variety of material sizes, shapes and other characteristics and requirements. This makes the reel very cost effective.
Since the reel is formed of a number of interchangeable parts, it can be reconfigured for a particular job without requiring special manufacturing of special parts. This further increases the cost-efficiency of the reel. The reel is very easily assembled and disassembled and does not require welding or the like to assemble. Therefore, set up and knockdown are easily carried out.
The present invention relates to the general art of winding, tensioning and guiding, and to the particular field of coil holders and supports such as a spool or core.
It is a main object of the present invention to provide a reel that can accommodate large amounts of material and can be efficiently removed from a site upon completion of a material dispensing procedure.
It is another object of the present invention to a reel that can accommodate large amounts of different size material and can be efficiently removed from a site upon completion of a material dispensing procedure.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a reel that can accommodate large amounts of material and can be efficiently removed from a site upon completion of a material dispensing procedure and which is adaptable to a wide variety of requirements.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a reel that can accommodate large amounts of material and can be efficiently removed from a site upon completion of a material dispensing procedure and which can be efficiently stored when not in use.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a reel that can accommodate large amounts of material and can be efficiently removed from a site upon completion of a material dispensing procedure and which is formed of a number of identical parts which can be easily assembled to form a wide variety of different reels that can satisfy a wide range of different requirements.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a reel that can accommodate large amounts of material and can be efficiently removed from a site upon completion of a material dispensing procedure and which is formed of a number of parts which can be easily assembled and disassembled and combined in a number of different ways to provide a number of different configurations.
Other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein are set forth, by way of illustration and example, certain embodiments of this invention.
The drawings constitute a part of this specification and include exemplary embodiments of the present invention and illustrate various objects and features thereof